Livi Stanford

Livi Stanford is former associate editor of redefinED. She spent her earlier professional career working at newspapers in Kansas, Massachusetts and Florida. Prior to her work at Step Up For Students, she covered the Lake County School Board, County Commission and local legislative delegation for the Daily Commercial in Leesburg. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Kansas.

Sen. Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala) hopes to clear up dual enrollment issues during the next legislative session.

A new Florida law intended to eliminate multiple barriers to private and home school students who want to take dual enrollment classes has instead left potentially hundreds of students shut out of taking such courses because their private schools are asked to foot the bill.

Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, who wrote the legislation on dual enrollment, wants to mitigate the issue in the upcoming legislative session.

Baxley said he will advocate for a separate pooled fund or cost sharing mechanism that could potentially be used to cover the costs of dual enrollment, removing the financial burden for colleges and private schools.

At the same time, Baxley said he is open to hearing other options from lawmakers about how to address the issue.

“I want to do whatever we can to close the gap so all students have access to dual enrollment,” he said.

Baxley, who was appointed last week by Senate President Bill Galvano to the Education Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, said dual enrollment courses are vital to a student’s education.

“It is beneficial to move these students quicker to the finish line on college completion,” he said.

A change in the law in 2013 shifted the cost of dual enrollment programs from colleges to school districts. But it did not address private schools, meaning many of them now must absorb the cost of college courses for high school students.

The new provisions on dual enrollment were contained in a wide-ranging bill, HB 7055, which Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in March. They were expected to address the issue.

One of those provisions removed the requirement that articulation agreements – the documents that allow students to take certain classes at nearby colleges — must specify whether the private schools are responsible for tuition. But educators were not clear on whether that meant that colleges or the private schools would pay the costs of dual enrollment.

Private school officials were waiting this summer for clarification from the state Department of Education, but a recent memo on the bill did not address the provisions. DOE spokesperson Audrey Walden instead cited a memo from Madeline Pumariega, former chancellor of the Florida College System. Pumariega formally oversaw the state’s 28 public colleges, which many private school students attend when they participate in dual enrollment.

Pumariega wrote that even though the new law no longer requires compensation “as a minimum requirement for private school dual enrollment articulation agreements,” it does not prevent colleges from charging a private school for dual enrollment because “previous language (in the law) neither granted nor barred the charging of the private school.”

Dual enrollment by private school students has been declining, even before this year’s change in the law. According to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, the number of students in private schools participating in dual enrollment has fallen by nearly 60 percent in recent years. In the 2011-2012 school year, more than 7,000 private school students participated in dual enrollment compared to only 3,026 in 2016-17.

James Herzog, who works on education policy for the Catholic Bishops Conference, said he is encouraged that Baxley would like to address the issue.

“That means a lot to the schools, the students and the hard-working families we serve,” he said.

After winning his election in the Senate’s 36th district, Manny Diaz (R-Hialeah) was named chairman of the Education Committee this week.

The new chairman of the Florida Senate Education Committee said Tuesday he wants to focus on expanding school choice.

“It is important to continue to meet the individual needs of every child,” said Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah. “My continued goal is to make sure that all parents have the best options available for their child. A full menu of parental choice options should be looked at.”

That menu, according to Diaz, should include expansion of education saving accounts, tax credit scholarships for low-income students, charter schools, magnet schools, online learning and vocational training. He also wants to revisit the issue of establishing a statewide authorizer for charter schools.

Diaz is newly elected to the Senate, but is an education veteran in the Capitol. He served six years in the Florida House of Representatives, with the last two as chairman of the PreK-12 Education Appropriations Subcommittee. He spent nearly two decades working in Miami-Dade public schools before being hired as chief operating officer of Doral College.

Diaz helped craft two signature education laws that shaped education policy. HB 7069, among other things, created a new Schools of Hope grant program aimed at attracting high-performing charter schools to struggling areas. And HB 7055 created two scholarship programs: one for victims of bullying and violence and the other for struggling elementary school readers. The legislation also expanded a program giving principals more flexibility and greater authority over staffing, the curriculum and the budget.

Diaz was also instrumental in expanding the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for low-income students and the Gardiner Scholarship, which provide education savings accounts for students with special needs. Step Up For Students, which administers the scholarship programs, publishes this blog.

Now, as he takes the helm as chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Diaz remains hopeful that the upcoming session may provide further opportunities to expand school choice options for more families. He also said school safety remains a top concern.

After the Parkland school shooting in February, Gov. Rick Scott signed a law increasing security measures at schools. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act requires all public schools to hire a school resource officer (SRO), a sheriff’s deputy or trained employee to carry a gun on campus.

Florida charter school officials are struggling to comply with the state’s new campus safety mandates, and Diaz said he supports expanding access to a guardian certification program that requires sheriffs’ department to train school personnel. But he does not support the recommendation of Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission chairman Bob Gualtieri, who is Pinellas County’s sheriff. Gualtieri wants to equip school teachers with guns.

“Let’s get away from the arming teachers conversation, and let’s have a real conversation about how we provide special personnel to protect these kids,” Diaz said.

While some have speculated the House and Senate will differ on school choice issues in the upcoming legislative session beginning in March, Diaz disagrees.

“I think we are all in agreement that we need to do what is best for students in the state,” he said.

“The biggest challenge facing education is the fact the state continues to grow, and funding is going to be a challenge year to year because of the growing cost of health care and other items in the state budget. We need to continue to figure out how to effectively fund and provide opportunities for students.”

Diaz sees every session as an opportunity to be a game changer.

“I think the one difference in this session is you have a governor-elect who is going to come into office and has been clear about his bold stance on education,” Diaz said. “When you have that, it provides more of an opportunity for those changes to happen.”

In his first trip to South Florida since winning the election, Governor-elect Ron DeSantis visited a Jewish Day school Monday where he spoke about the importance of expanding educational options and enhancing security specifically at such schools.

DeSantis visited Brauser Maimonides Academy, a Jewish Day school in Fort Lauderdale, where 80 students use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for low-income students. Step Up For Students, which helps administer the scholarship, publishes this blog.

“For his first trip to be focused on visiting a Jewish day school, talking about security and expanding school choice says an enormous amount about what his priorities will be when he gets sworn in,” said Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, who attended the event.

Fine, who sponsored legislation in 2017 that provided security funding for Jewish day schools, said DeSantis highlighted security at the Orthodox school Monday. Gov. Rick Scott asked legislators last month to increase security funding for Jewish Day schools from $2 million to $4 million. This past spring, the Florida Legislature approved $2 million in security funding for 46 Jewish day schools.

Rabbi Yoni Fein, head of school for Brauser, said he was encouraged by the governor-elect’s visit. Fein said security is his own top priority, specifically “with the rise of anti-Semitism and the number of incidents that have happened on school properties.”

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States grew by 57 percent in 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

“There is a lot more we need to do to ensure we have the highest security possible,” he said.

At a roundtable discussion, DeSantis emphasized how scholarship programs such as the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs are working and how there are many families who want the same choice, according to Mimi Jankovits, executive director of Teach Florida.

“Florida has the weather, low taxes and hopefully under the DeSantis administration we will build the best school system in the country,” Jankovits said.

Students at Lourdes Academy have begun participating in the Program for Inclusive Education (PIE) for students with specific learning needs or diagnosed disabilities.

The losses were small but concerning. On average each year, two students with learning needs were leaving Lourdes Academy in Daytona Beach.

Like many other Catholic schools, Lourdes simply did not have a full-time staff person to help meet the needs of those students. According to principal Stephen Dole, that deficit made it hard for the school to identify the students and the interventions they may need.

“When you think of 225 students you have and out of those 25 are struggling, that is a decent number you have to allocate resources to,” he said.

When Dole learned of the Program for Inclusive Education (PIE) at the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, he thought the program was just what the school needed. PIE trains teachers to identify students with specific learning needs or diagnosed disabilities and directs them in implementing evidence-based practices that have been proven effective for struggling learners. The 13-month program allows teachers to become certified in exceptional needs and mild intervention.

Lourdes was the first of three Catholic schools in the state to complete the program, which was founded in 2016. In total, 32 schools in 16 states have participated.

Now, there are two teachers certified at Lourdes to deal with mild to moderate interventions, one of whom is dedicated full-time to meet the needs of struggling students.

“We are hopeful to be able to retain the students,” said Dole. “We want them to be on grade level before they graduate. We want to continue to meet the needs of as many students as possible.”

According to the University of Notre Dame, 87 percent of dioceses surveyed report that schools do not have the capacity to meet the needs of students with learning differences. The National Center for Education Statistics also reported in 2017 that 78.4 percent of Catholic schools serve students with mild to moderate special needs.

Overall, 5.1 percent of students in Catholic schools have a diagnosed disability, according to the National Catholic Education Association.

Amy Matzke, director of student support at Lourdes Academy, said that prior to the PIE training the school struggled through trial and error to find the best interventions for those struggling students. Matzke said now she has evidence-based protocols that guide her through her curriculum-based measures that are targeted to each student’s needs.

Matzke leads a team of paraprofessionals who can pinpoint struggling students and determine the best solution for them: intervention, another teacher in the classroom or a small group setting.

“We are able to look at an actual behavior or learning issue,” Matzke said. “We are able to decide why this happened, what we need to do to fix it and implement it right away. “

Lourdes serves 225 students, of whom 145 use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for low-income students. That scholarship is administered by nonprofits like Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog.

The school was chosen as a National Blue Ribbon School in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education. When the economy weakened in 2008, many parents pulled out their kids, said Dole.

When Dole became principal in 2016, he implemented a higher measure of accountability for students and parents. He brought on a full-time curriculum coordinator to strengthen the curriculum working directly with teachers to implement best practices. Personnel changes were also made.

The school currently includes students from all backgrounds: 50 percent are white; 25 percent Latino; 20 percent black; and 5 percent Asian or mixed race.

Since changes were implemented in the last three years, students have continued to make academic progress, scoring well above the national average of 50 percent on Iowa assessments, according to Dole.

Beyond Lourdes Academy, the mission of PIE is to equip Catholic schools with the culture, foundation and resources for educating all students inclusively while celebrating every student’s diverse and exceptional characteristics, said Christie Bonfiglio, director of PIE and director of professional standards and graduate studies at Notre Dame.

“PIE advocates for empirically-validated instruction so teachers are implementing what works,” Bonfiglio said. “In addition, we train teachers to collect valuable data and to make good decisions based on the evidence.”

Historically, Catholic schools have been slow to open their doors to students with diagnosed learning needs, Bonfiglio added, but “now we are seeing more advocacy and a bigger push to serve academically diverse students in all schools.”

Notre Dame began supporting the mission of inclusion through the Teaching Exceptional Children Program in the summer of 2010. The program was revised over the years to better meet the needs of struggling learners and students with disabilities.

“Nationally, academic diversity is prevalent in all schools,” said Bonfiglio. “That is, there are struggling learners and students with disabilities (diagnosed or not) in the classrooms in Catholic schools across the country. It is our responsibility as Catholic educators to welcome these students and ensure that their needs are met.”

Charter schools across Florida are hoping lawmakers will allow them greater access to the Aaron Feis Guardian Program, established after the Parkland massacre, to be able to comply with the state’s new campus safety mandates.

Florida charter school officials struggling to comply with the state’s new campus safety mandates are hoping lawmakers can help: Expand access to the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program by requiring all county sheriffs to participate in training armed school personnel.

After the Parkland shooting in February, Gov. Rick Scott signed into law legislation increasing security measures at schools. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act requires all public schools to hire a school resource officer (SRO), a sheriff’s deputy or trained employee to carry a gun on campus.

However, many charter schools (which receive less in revenue than traditional public schools, according to a study from Florida TaxWatch) can’t afford SROs. Finances are not the only obstacle. In many areas, there simply are not enough officers to meet the needs at each school.

The law created a cheaper alternative to SROs: the Guardian program, named after the Stoneman Douglas coach who died protecting students. It provides law enforcement training to public school staffers, excluding teachers, who want to carry a gun on campus. Both the school districts and the sheriff’s offices must agree to participate in the program.

So far, though, only 25 out of 67 school districts are participating in the Guardian program, according to the Florida Department of Education, despite the fact the state appropriated $67 million to fund it.

Lynn Norman-Teck, executive director of the Florida Charter School Alliance, said her organization would like to see all the sheriff’s offices participating in the Guardian program.

“This would help all schools – whether charter or district-run — to comply with the state mandate,” she said. “We need to make sure there are personnel available to hire for the security positions on campuses,”

Senator-elect Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, said he believes charter schools should be afforded greater opportunity to participate in the Guardian program.

He suggested one solution would be allowing personnel to be trained in other counties that have a Guardian program.

“That would probably be the best compromise where we are not forcing a sheriff to have a program,” he said. “I don’t see a reason we couldn’t have a Guardian certification program statewide.”

Osvaldo Garcia is principal at Passport Charter School in Orange County, where the school board chose not to participate in the Guardian program. He said he is not able to afford a full-time SRO at a cost of $50 an hour when the school was given only a little over $9,000 to hire one.

As a result, Garcia is sharing an SRO with 13 other schools, meaning the officer is not at the school on a full-time basis.

“If we had (an officer) on a daily basis it would be a struggle for us,” Garcia said of the costs of affording such a position. He said 41 other charter schools in Orange County are encountering similar issues.

Garcia said the Guardian program could help alleviate his situation, but that he also had concerns.

“How prepared are these people legitimately to have a handle on a difficult situation?” he asked. “They are not trained police officers who go through so many hours of training.”

Meanwhile, in Duval County, the sheriff’s office and school district are participating in the Guardian program.

Even so, Simaran Bakshi, principal at Wayman Academy of the Arts, a charter school serving 281 students in Jacksonville, said she is finding it difficult to find employees who are interested in applying for the program.

With the program requiring 170 hours of training, staff is expected to be absent a month, which is also a burden, she added.

Bakshi said she currently has an SRO at the school based on an affordable rate negotiated between the school district and sheriff’s office. But that rate will soon expire, leaving her paying more than $35 an hour for an SRO — an amount she can’t afford.

Ralph Arza, director of government relations for the Florida Charter School Alliance, said while it seems unlikely lawmakers will change the law to mandate sheriff’s offices participate in the program, there could be another compromise.

He said if charter schools could hire a trained, licensed armed guard, which is not applicable under the law, that could provide an affordable option.

All across Florida, voters chose to raise their own taxes to pump more money into their local schools. Some districts will share that money with charters, some won’t, and questions still remain yet in others.

As voters in eight Florida counties Tuesday approved extra taxes for public schools, charter school officials aren’t sure whether any of that money will be shared with charters.

Four of the counties – Alachua, Lee, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach – made formal decisions prior to the election not to share the revenue from tax increases with charter schools. Three others – Charlotte, Hillsborough and Polk – say they intend to share some portions. The eighth county, Martin, could not be reached for comment.

Charter officials say they are troubled by the decisions because they believe charters, as public schools, should also be allowed to receive some of the funding. They also worry that proposed salary increases at traditional public schools will make it harder for them to compete for the best teachers.

“It is hard to believe that charter schools have been a part of Florida’s K-12 public education system for over 20 years,” said Lynn Norman-Teck, executive director of the Florida Charter School Alliance. “Yet, we are not seen as a partner by some districts but as the other. It is clear when you look at the tax referendum language, they don’t see us as partners even though we are here working hand and hand with them to raise the bar in Florida, especially among minority students.”

A comprehensive look at school safety for both Florida’s public and private schools is likely in the upcoming legislative session.

In the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 people dead, key Florida lawmakers are looking to increase security at both public and private schools in this state.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, says he wants to introduce legislation allowing private schools to participate in the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program. That program currently provides law enforcement training to public school staffers who want to carry a gun on campus.

“We created a program for public schools that said if they could choose to send their staff members to get special training, the state would pay for it and they could be armed guardians in public schools,” said Fine. “There is no reason we shouldn’t open that program to private schools.”

So far, only 25 out of 67 school districts are participating in the guardian program, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Jason Crawford leads his Pathfinding class at Class Source. The class teaches students life skills and personal development

The idea that pain can lead to a positive change in one’s life left students seeking more answers in Jason Crawford’s class.

One student sat laughing in disbelief. “How could this be?” she asked with amazement.

“Because pain leads to awareness and awareness plus choice equals action,” said Crawford, donning glasses and sporting a beard, as he wrote the formula on the wipe board. “Action turns into habits.”

This was not your typical classroom. Crawford is not your typical teacher. He is a marketing consultant who has a master’s in counseling.

Pathfinding is just one of more than 50 courses students can take at Class Source, a nonprofit enrichment program for home education students in Lutz. The list includes core offerings such as English, Math and Social studies. But it also includes classes that are not normally offered in a traditional school setting, such as life skills and novel writing. Families also find a community at the classes. While students take classes, parents receive mentoring and support from one another.

As the education landscape in Florida continues to shift toward customization, homeschooling is itself becoming more customized for families through a growing network of support and tools. In addition to programs that offer curriculum and instructors, there are mentoring groups for parents. Class Source is one of 10 such programs in the state. Homeschool families have been building networks to support one another and offer classes where students can find what interests them most.

“It gives a child a chance,” said Dina Fox, who founded Class Source in 2007 after observing the inconsistency of co-ops. “If they have a passion, they can log onto that passion. You can take that passion and put it into other areas to help them learn.”